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Pathfinder Homebrew
Hello all! This little page is where I'm going to be writing up the details of my homebrewery. For those who have no idea what I'm babbling about: Pathfinder is essentially the "Spiritual Successor" to DnD 3.5 - to the extent that the systems are largely (If usually not perfectly) compatible with eachother. Why is this important? Well, I was recently approached and asked to DM a game. 'Certainly!' I said, 'And it will be set in Equestria!' And 'Ponies!' was the word, and it was good. Obviously WTWE was my chosen setting, as its an absolutely wonderful world. Anyway, with that out of the way, onwards! This page will start rather messy as I write down absolutely everything I've brainstormed in no particular order, but will become more structured and neat with time. I shall note that so far in my opinion, the rules are quite generous towards the players, generally high-powered, and only nominally balanced. Absolutely nothing here is set in stone, and input is appreciated! Hit me up on the comments, on my talk page, or whichever else :D ---- Victor Ramsay 13:38, April 25, 2012 (UTC) 'Races' These were found elsewhere and are potential candidates for a final draft; created by a fellow named FightingFire!r7KTjuynTM. 'Earth Pony Racial Traits:' +2 to One Ability Score: '''Earth Ponies get a +2 bonus to one ability score of thier choice at creation to represent thier varied nature. '''Medium: Earth Ponies are medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to thier size. Fast Speed: Earth Ponies have a base speed of 40 feet. Trample: Earth Ponies gain Trample as a bonus feat at 1st level. Sturdy: Earth Ponies gain a +4 Racial bonus to resist bull rushes and being knocked prone. 'Unicorn Racial Traits:' +2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom, -2 Strength: '''Unicorns have great strength of mind, but little strength of body. '''Medium: Unicorns are medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to thier size. Fast Speed: Unicorns have a base speed of 40 feet. Unicorn Magic: Unicorns can use any one metamagic feat they know for free, once per day. In addition, Unicorns with an intelligence of 11 or higher also gain mage hand and prestidigitation ; as well as two further cantrips from the Sorceror/Wizard spell list. Gore: Unicorns have a gore natural attack when attacking with thier horn 'Pegasus Racial Traits:' +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, -2 Constitution: '''Pegasi are quick and charming, but thier light frame is weak in combat. '''Medium: Pegasi are medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to thier size. Fast Speed: Pegasi have a base speed of 40 feet. Flight: Pegasi gain the flight ability by way of their wings at level one. At 1st level Pegasi are clumsy (-8), they are poor (-4) at 3rd level, average (+0) at 7th level, good (+4) at 11th level, and perfect (+8) at 15th level Super Speed Strut: Pegasi can increase thier land speed to 60 ft by way of thier wings, but only in a straight line. Cloudwalk: Pegasi may treat clouds and fog as solid ground or as vapour. 'Cutie Marks' Largely undefined at this point; general consensus is that a small bonus of around +3 to a related skill would be appropriate, with a general guideline of that it has to relate to thier class/character in some way. Engems These are obviously rather important indeed. I'm still not entirely sure how to work it; so I'll go into the most likely possibilities here. 'Spell Matrix' Pure Damage/Resistance (aka 'simple') The simplest type of these that I have in mind is the simple damage type The example on the engem page is perfect, a fire gem that coats bullets in flames. As a result, an engem inserted into a weapon will contribute attributes depending on its quality and configuration. Pathfinder obviously has rules already set for enchanted items, however I was going to keep those relatively seperate. There are a few assumptions and assertions I've made, as to the differences: *Engems can be removed from objects and moved to others *Engems can run out of charge and become useless unless recharged *Engems can be destroyed relatively easily (Compared to traditional enchantments) *The existing Pathfinder equipment enchantments are seperate from engems and they stack with eachother *Alternatively, non-numerical enchantments do not exist, and are emulated by engems. Some checks and balances are required, here's what I've got so far; *Equipment must have sufficient "Sockets" for engems placed on it - so far I'm thinking +1 items have one socket, +3 have two, and +5 have three. *Particularly weak engems might take less than one slot (ie, half), and particularly strong ones might take more - a monstrously powerful engem would be three. *Considering this, possibly Masterwork equipment could fit a "Half" engem (And Artifact-level equipment more than three) The Capacity of a 'simple' engem defines how many charges it can hold. Throughput defines damage or resistance potential. It would not be unusual to find an engem with noticeably more than 50 charges, due to thier efficiency. Compatability is as follows, and is largely arbitrary: *Red, orange, yellow = Fire engem = Fire or Sonic damage *Green, Blue = Earth engem = Sonic or Acid damage *Blue, Cyan = Water engem = Acid or Cold damage *Cyan, Violet = Air engem = Cold or Electricity damage *Black, Grey = Void engem = Negative Energy *White, Grey = Aether engem = Positive Energy In terms of Adaptability, I've not really got any way of reliably deciding who is what. Mechanically speaking we could arbitrarily assign elements to alignments, however as stated this would be largely arbitrary, and lack any sort of meaning. The easiest method to deal with this would be for the DM to decide - If a character acts particularly fiery, perhaps a 5-25% increase in Fire damage from engems. Spell Effect These ones are easy - wands and staves are powered by engems. A wand of Magic Missile is actually an Engem of magic missile, set into a wand - a specially prepared object designed with a single engem socket. Because of this, engems can potentially be taken out of a wand and a different one put in - however this is not as much of an advantage as it may seem, as a "Blank" wand will likely not be very expensive, and having two wands will be easier than having one and shuffling gems around. Note that this would make it possible to hold two very weak (Half-socket) engems in a single wand. Staves are slightly more complex - like wands but larger, these hold multiple sockets - three being traditional for a very powerful staff, though legendary-level staves may have more. This allows staves to hold more powerful spells (by using more sockets) or hold multiple lower-level spells. "Blank" staves will be significantly more expensive than wands considering the extra effort required, becoming even more so as the number of sockets increases. Spell Effect engems on thier own are more difficult to use as they lack the focusing effect of a wand or staff, requiring a spellcraft/UMD check of 20/25 plus the spell level within. This makes it possible for skilled casters (And exceptionally skilled non-casters) to use them in a pinch, however makes it desirable to pair them with a wand or staff. Penalties for failure will most likely be the loss of a charge on a failure as the ley fails to coalesce into the spell, and the loss of 1d6 charges on a critical failure as ley energy spills out. Spell Matrix engems are much less volatile than Source engems, so this discharge is harmless, if unsettling. For the purposes of mixing Spell Effect and 'simple' engems, I think it'd be best to consider the simple engems as casting a shot-lived damage enhancement on 'self'. For example if you put a simple fire engem into a wand and activated it, the wand would be wreathed in fire for a moment (ie, long enough for a single strike) Putting spell effect engems into weapons could go one of two ways; either it works fine, meaning you can essentially use a socketed sword as a very pointy wand, or that the weapons are not designed to focus spell energy and thus require a spellcraft/UMD checks as normal, meaning that the most benefit is not needing a hand free (And looking awesome because your pistol shoots lightning bolts). 'Source' So far I've figured the best way to do this is to have several types of Source engem. All are potentially dangerous as you are essentially acting as a conduit for massive amounts of Ley. Details as follows: *Type one will allow a caster to use the power within to help manipulate magical energies, applying a metamagic feat they know for free *Type two are similair, and allow a caster to directly power up spells as they are being cast, increasing the effective caster level *Type three allows the user to channel the power within through themselves, allowing them to recover and then immediately use a depleted spell, or use a spell without depleting the slot. Source gems are charged, just like Spell gems, as follows; *One charge in a Type One will allow a caster to apply a one-step metamagic feat to a spell *One charge in a Type Two increases the effective caster level of the spell by one *One charge in a type Three allows the user to use a single first-level spell. The Capacity of a Source gem dictates the maximum charges it can hold, and the Throughput dictates how much can be used at once. In keeping with the description on the Engem page, I'm thinking of two additions to this: Firstly, that most Source engems are low-capacity high-throughput. Secondly, that Source engems have a 'minimum' amount of power that can be used at once, to represent the overwhelming power within. Category:Pathfinder